Generally, this invention relates to a packaging system for and techniques of compressing items in an economical manner and in a manner which allows full recovery of the particular item compressed. Specifically, the invention focuses upon techniques and packaging for the pet industry where larger volume, compressible items are fairly common.
The desire to compress items for shipping and storage has been known in some industries for many years. In a basic form, the concept involves taking a compressible item such as a product substantially made of foam and compressing that item so that in either shipping or storage it consumes much less volume and is therefore less expensive and more economical to provide to the customer. Such a technique offers advantages throughout the distribution cycle. To the manufacturer, the distributor, and the retailer compressed products take up only a small fraction of the volume of the fully expanded product and thus allow more economical use of both inventory and retailing spaces. To the consumer, not only does the product consume less space in transportation, but it can also provide some degree of entertainment when the package is initially opened and the item becomes uncompressed. At the point of purchase, the consumer is not hindered by the compressed state of the particular item--and in fact may be reassured by it--since not only can they either see a picture or an actually uncompressed item, but they may also find some comfort in knowing that the item has not been damaged, utilize, or exposed to dirt or germs prior to their purchase. While this basic concept seems quite simple, implementation is not so straightforward. To the contrary, simple compression in a practical manner which is economical for all those involved in the distribution cycle and which provides an untainted product to the consumer is attended by a great variety of challenges and problems.
Perhaps one of the most significant problems that those in some fields have faced is the fact that once compressed the item tends to want to uncompress to its natural state. As a result a variety of efforts have been directed toward techniques which hold the item in the compressed state. Naturally, the greater the degree of compression, the greater the need for a restraining system. Efforts in this regard include those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,016,707 (and subsequent reissue patent 30,893) which includes a design having a small enough opening to allow sufficient time to insert the item into a restraining container. In similar fashion U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,620 provides for simultaneously compressing the item and urging it into a container which might even include a rigid container. Not only do such systems unnecessarily require structurally strong containers, but they also may involve unnecessary expense (for the container which is ultimately disposed of) and may involve unnecessarily complicated steps in the manufacturing process.
As shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,620, it has been known to utilize vacuum in order to achieve compression. One of the problems with such a technique, however, is that once compressed it is difficult to economically seal the encasing in which compression occurred. Presumably this is one reason why the invention disclosed in U.S. Pat. 3,968,620 provides simultaneously urging the compressed item into a rigid container. While some designs such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,641,726 incorporate some type of valve mechanism such solutions have not been entirely acceptable due to the fact that the container itself is typically disposed of as soon as the package is opened. (It also compresses in a flat manner which does not minimize the volume of the item.) A very clear statement of the problem of sealing a compressed encasing is made in U.S. Pat. No. 3,307,319 which states that sealing is difficult since "no practical way of eliminating the rumpling has been found." Thus, as a solution this particular system utilized an external restraint which structurally held the item in its compressed state. The present invention overcomes the limitations of such an approach.
At least two problems have presented themselves from the consumer's perspective which are solved by the present invention. First, from the consumer's perspective one of the most difficult problems for such items was the fact that when substantially compressed many items would either take too long to recover or would not fully recover. Although full recovery in a very short time frame--even after long storage--has been almost universally desired, until the present invention this goal was not practically achievable. This has been due in part to the fact that those involved in the compression of products did not understand that the particular foam was very important in determining recovery. To some degree those involved were lead away from the solutions of the present invention. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,620 actually teaches that any type of foam is acceptable and that lower density foams are preferred. The present invention teaches that this is not, in fact, true.
A second problem from the consumer's perspective has been the desire for the item to be easily removed from the container. Since the items inherently try to uncompress, they tend to stick to any encasing. Again, the present invention solves this problem in a manner which meets consumer's desires.
In systems which utilize vacuum or low pressure to achieve compression, uniform removal of the air has also been desired. Since the item typically compresses while the air is being removed, it has been a challenge to avoid pockets or other blockages which do not allow uniform compression. Solutions to this problem have involved complex mechanisms such as that proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,889,444 in which a cone-shaped chamber and other designs are included in order to assure uniform evacuation in the vicinity of the item. Again the present invention solves this problem in a manner which is simple and economical.
As relating to the compression of products in general, certainly there are other problems which have arisen and which are solved by the present invention ranging from the need for a simple opening system to the need to be able to compress multiple products at one time and into one package. As discussed in other aspects of the specification and claims the present invention solves a host of different challenges in a manner which is both economical and acceptable to the consumer. As can be seen, many of these involve the proper combination of features to function together to achieve the desired result.
A key application of the present invention is that of the pet industry. A significant aspect of the pet industry includes the use of items made of foam such as pet beds and the like. As to these items and this industry, prior to the present invention impediments to the distribution cycle included not only the space that such items occupy in shipping but also the space which they occupy in an inventory or retail setting. In spite of the fact that other industries have utilized techniques to minimize the amount of space required, the pet industry has not previously realized that these techniques were applicable to their industry in an economical manner. The previous efforts from unrelated fields simply were not recognized as being practically applicable by those in the pet industry. This is perhaps due in part to the fact that the pet industry is a very specialized field which caters to customers that have very different needs and desires from other consumers of foam-based products. As a result, rather than utilizing techniques available to other industries, those involved in the pet industry have focused their attention more on their own industry and its potentially unique requirements. As a result this one industry has overlooked solutions to long recognized problems even though some solutions may have been available from other fields. In this industry alone it can be seen that while those skilled in the art recognized the challenges of their high-volume products, they did not fully appreciate that the problem lay in a practical technique to compress the products during the distribution cycle and in a practical technique to allow them to be fully uncompressed either in order to provide them to the consumer or after actually being purchased by the consumer.
As to both the pet industry and the overall desire to compress products, the present invention discloses techniques which overcome virtually every one of the previous problems in a practical fashion. Perhaps surprisingly, it satisfies a long-felt need to achieve economical and efficient compression of products for packaging through the implementation of techniques and elements that had long been available. To some degree, even those involved in the compression of products for packaging in other industries had not fully appreciated that the problems of sealing and recovery could be solved by either the proper selection of material or the utilization of the appropriate technique for compression. Obviously, substantial attempts had been made in order to solve the problems that those in various industries had faced in attempting to practically compress products. In spite of those attempts, until the present invention no techniques were available which practically solved the spectrum of challenges which this seemingly simple task entailed. In fact, even the efforts pursued acted to teach away from the directions which the present invention takes in that they either utilize the wrong material, attempted to restrain a compressed package through structural restraint, or in general were not able to provide a packaging system which was both economical and met the needs of the end users.